State counsel seeks death penalties for convicts

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Chief State Counsel Anisul Haque sought the apex court uphold the death penalties for the Bangabandhu Murder Trial convicts as he concluded submissions on his part in the final appeal hearing of the case Wednesday, reports BSS.
"The collective conscience of the nation is so shocked by such horrendous crime that it expects the holders of the 'judicial power centre' to inflict no other sentence but the death penalty," Mr Haque said at the fag end of his submission at the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
He said there was no scope to reduce the sentence in view of the heinous crimes the convicts had committed adding that the August 15, 1975 assassination of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members was "extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical and revolting".
"It aroused intense and extreme indignation of the nation . . . it was an act of betrayal to the motherland," he said as the appeal hearing was held for the 28th day since it began on October 5 before a five-judge Bench of the Appellate Division.
The apex court earlier granted the leave to appeal by five of the 12 condemned convicts, now in jail, while six others are on the run abroad and one died a natural death meanwhile in Zimbabwe.
On conclusion of the submissions by the state side, the lawyers of the convicted appellants started replying the submission of Mr Haque with sacked Major Bazlul Huda and sacked Lieutenant Colonel AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed's (lancer) lawyer Barrister Abdullah Al Mamun placing his arguments.
Mamun claimed that his clients deserved the "benefit of doubt" in view of "several contradictions" in the witnesses' testimonies at the trial stage at the lower court while he also reiterated his earlier argument that August 15 incident was a mutiny and needed trial in a military court.